What to do when your product never gets its first surge of sales — even after “validation”

“I launched my product six months ago, but it never really took off. No viral spike, no surge—just a painfully slow trickle of sales. At what point should I accept that maybe there’s no real market for what I’m selling?” 

— Jenna, Austin, TX

Jenna did the things founders are told to do.

Pre-launch validation.

Conversations with “future customers.”

Even a handful of pre-orders.

And yet… nothing took off.

That’s the dirty secret of founder-led validation.

We ask leading questions. We recruit friends, colleagues, and the people who most want to see us succeed. We interpret politeness as intent.

The result (in this case):

A false positive.

It looks like a market. Smells like a market. Acts like a market

Until you try to sell into it.

This isn’t always the death sentence it can feel like.

What it means is you have to stop thinking in terms of the market and start looking for your market.

That starts with research.

Not so much “how do I get more sales?” but more of “who’s getting the most value from what I’ve already sold?”

It could be a teeny segment you didn’t notice:

A particular profession using your product to solve a job you didn’t design for.

A customer who buys more often because they’ve hacked your product into part of a workflow.

Someone whose specific context makes your offer far more valuable than for the average buyer.

You won’t find THAT in surveys.

You find it in real conversations with real users.

Ask stuff like:
“How are you using this?”
“What problem does it solve for you?”
“What’s the most valuable part for YOU?”
“What do you wish it did that it doesn’t?”

Then do the thing most founders resist — pivot your targeting to go after more people exactly like those.

If your original “market” was too broad, here is where you sharpen the edge.

You might find that 90% of an audience doesn’t need what you sell.

But if 10% needs it desperately, you DO have a path forward.

The first surge isn’t voodoo magic. It’s the result of putting the right product in front of the right people

Over and over until momentum builds.

If that hasn’t happened yet, it’s not time to give up.

It’s time to go hunting for the buyers who already love you. 😍

Forward this to someone wondering if their slow start means the end, or reach out to my team of product marketing strategists at Graphos Product.